Resurrection

For our midweek preaching series in Lent this year at First Pres, Jamestown, I asked five people...three clergy, two non-clergy...to compose an original poem, present it, and offer preaching reflections on it. "Five Poems for Lent" turned out to be wonderful, so much so that I suggested to our staff that we follow it with "Four Poems for Holy Week and Lent." Jon Rieley-Goddard's previous post was of the Good Friday poem he wrote and presented as well as the sermon he preached on it. The pastoral associate at First Pres did Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday. I figured it might be good for my job longevity if I weighed in with at least one poem...so I am in the pulpit on Easter. As I post this Friday evening, I haven't a clue yet as to the sermon I will preach around this poem, but, here, with my best wishes for the presence of Easter in your life all the year long, is the poem.


Tom


P.S. to Steve Phelps - I have not forgotten my phone call to you...soon and very soon!!



Resurrection

Sometimes we give our hearts to something or someone
and then it or they are gone.
Loving deeply,
the letting go is wrenching,
a searing, scarring agony entombing us
until one day,
amid or after the weeping and wasting,
we are set free:
alive again.

(TAS - Easter 2008)